


The Tin Dispatch Box

by jjsngadget



Category: Elementary (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, The Adventure of the Three Garridebs, pre-series character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 01:08:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjsngadget/pseuds/jjsngadget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan finds a box in the basement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tin Dispatch Box

****  
  
It was an old metal box. Joan had found it in the basement hidden in a dusty corner. there was no lock on the latches so she felt less bad opening it. Six leather diaries stood neatly inside. In her experience, patients had a deviousness for hiding spots outmatched only by the strength of their addictions to the drugs they were hiding.

********  
  
But staring at the bound books, their spines cracked with use, Joan felt a frission of unease. She didn’t let that stop her, however, from opening every book and thumbing through the pages for dime bags or hollowed out spaces. Once the box was empty of books, she checked it for false bottoms and secret compartments. There was nothing. It was as it looked, an old box of memories. She carefully replaced each book in its correct spot and closed the lid. Her fingers slid over the groove of initials on the lid and she idly wondered who J.H.W. was.  
  
A creak alerted her to Sherlock staring at her from atop the stairs, a blank look on his face.  
  
“I didn’t read any of them,” she offered, knowing how he felt about her breaching his privacy, and also knowing that her job required her to do--  
  
“--random drug check. I know, I was watching.”  
  
“Who’s--none of my business.”  
  
Sherlock was quiet for a long moment. “His name was John. He was my best friend, and I killed him.” He left her sitting on the floor.  
  
  
Staring at the search box, Joan paused. Surely, if Sherlock had wanted her to know about John, he would have told her. On the other hand, it couldn’t be a secret if it was in the public domain. A query “Sherlock Holmes London John murder”  brought up quite a few results.  
  
Many of the links were to random press release by a DI Lestrade, detailing a case’s resolution with the help of Sherlock Holmes. One link stood out among the others: “Army Doctor murdered in Inheritance Scam”  
  
A click brought up an article from the Daily Mail.  
  


>   
> _Dr. John Watson, late of the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers, and currently assistant to Consulting Detective Sherlock Holmes, was killed during their most recent investigation. The suspected killer, John Garrideb was arrested at the scene, gun still in his hand._   
> _Holmes and Watson were investigation Garrideb’s claim of an American man’s last will and testament, and had confronted the suspect at the home of Nathan Garrideb (no relation). In the ensuing row the suspect pulled a gun and shot Watson. Watson was pronounced dead at the scene._   
> 

She remembered the conversation they had had during her second week with him.

_“Do you close yourself off to people, deny yourself things that might bring you pleasure? Not because it makes you a better investigator, but because it’s some sort of penance?”_

_“Penance?”_

_“For what happened in London? Being addicted? I don’t know, it just occured to me that it might be something someone would do and not even know it.”_

_“You always know it, Watson. If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be penance.”_

The next morning, during their after-breakfast drug test, she paused before reading the test strip result.

“So, am I still clean, Watson?” Sherlock asked impatiently.

“Don’t,” she chided gently.  “You never call me Joan, always Watson. It’s not healthy, this substitution. I’m not John, I’m not your partner.”

He looked away from her, clenching his jaw. “Do you think a single day goes by that I am not painfully reminded of that fact? Every day, on every case, I feel his absence, like a knife in my heart.”

She glanced at the test strip, clean. “Then why do you still do it? Why not be a professional beekeeper, write your book. Anything but this.”

“You killed a patient, why are you still trying to help people? Because it’s what you’re good at. Solving crimes, observing and deducing, it’s what I’m good at. And I’d thank you not to expand your addict-sitting duties into trying to psychoanalyse me.” With that he stomped up the stairs, up and up, until she heard the roof door open and slam shut.


End file.
